


The Pulse of Love

by batmomhoe



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Fan Apprentice - Freeform, Fluff, Gen, Gender Neutral, M/M, Other, Series, Soulmate AU, julian devorak - Freeform, reader - Freeform, supportive mama mazelinka, the arcana - Freeform, young dorky julian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18577921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batmomhoe/pseuds/batmomhoe
Summary: Julian & Reader's story of finding their soulmates. Wristband Soulmate AU, slightly canon-divergentthis was also posted on tumblr @chibibugeisha , by the owner & writer, this work is not to be published anywhere else unless by me :D





	The Pulse of Love

Though now a vague, distant memory, your fourth birthday still holds a special place with you. The anticipation you had while waiting for your wristband nearly drove your younger self mad. Until finally, your government-issued soulmate wristband came precisely in the middle of your birthday party. It had been years since the legislation passed through the governments, allowing each and every country to pass out magic based wristbands, allowing the wearer to feel their soulmate’s heartbeat. The magic in the wristband would alert you when you get closer to your soulmate. The pale green color progressively flashing faster as you became closer. Then, when you were next to your soulmate the wristband would switch colors to stay a constant red.

Once you unwrapped the neatly packaged bracelet your eyes twinkled excitedly while you clasped it onto your wrist. Immediately the green color lit up the device and you let a small, happy squeal out the moment you first felt your soulmate’s heartbeat come through. A family member rubbed your back, sharing your excitement and someone at the party remarked that your soulmate must be quite a ways away. You couldn’t care less at the time, the soft thump of their heart was enough to keep you hopeful that you two would find each other one day.

Your relative was right - your soulmate was rather far from you, but distance didn’t seem to bother them either. The young lanky boy had been wearing his bracelet for some years now, hoping, praying, for the day you would get your bracelet. He was outside doing some chores for his adoptive guardians when he felt it. At first, he thought it was just another animal his younger sister slipped into his sleeve again. Then he shook his sleeve and nothing came out, prompting him to actually push his sleeve up and look directly at his finally colorized bracelet. Everything he was holding fell to the ground as he scrambled back into the modest house.

“M- Mazelinka!” He huffed and babbled incoherently as he looked for his guardian, finding her in the back garden, “Mazelinka!! Look!”

He bolted over to the older woman and jutted his wrist toward her, showing off the green light, “Oh, Ilya, look at that. See, I told ya, nothing to worry about. They’re just a bit younger than you, that’s all. Now all those sleepless nights seem silly, don’t they?”

His pale cheeks reddened and he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment, “Yeah… I guess, but they must be real far away… The light is barely flashing at all!”

The older woman put her gardening tools down, turning to face her adopted son’s anxiety. She placed her hands on his shoulders reassuringly, rubbing them slightly to calm his nerves, “Distance means nothing in the face of love. If you are meant to meet them then the winds of fate shall carry you across even the roughest of seas to find them,” her hands moved to cup his youthful cheeks, “And through it all you will have us to come home to, understand?”

A quick nod was his only response but she could tell from the faint smile in his lips he took her words to heart, “Good! Now go finish pruning those elfergreens, you know what happens when they get overgrown!” She grinned and clapped him on the back, sending him off excitedly jogging back to where he was originally.

Life could only get better once you find out your soulmate does in fact exist. Your schooling was made easier by the soft thumping of your soulmate’s heartbeat. Every time you became stressed you felt their heartbeat quicken slightly in concern for you. The faster drumming against your wrist would have a calming effect on you and you only hoped you did the same for your soulmate, wherever they may be. Unbeknownst to you, it did just that. Whenever he was having a bad day he’d feel your heart and start to daydream about what you might be doing. Then his thoughts would wander to where you might be, or what you might be looking at, effectively taking his mind off of what was bothering him.  
Although at times, knowing you two were still far apart was troubling. You accepted every trip you could take, accepted every time someone offered to take you anywhere you hadn’t been before. All in hopes of possibly watching the light of your bracelet flash faster. To which sometimes it did, giving you a general idea of where you’d need to travel to get closer to them. However, until you had the chance to travel that far, you’d just have to keep at your studies and hope they didn’t move any further away from you. To which he definitely didn’t plan on doing. In fact, he wanted to drop everything and wander aimlessly to find you when his light began flashing only slightly faster the time you were traveling towards his direction.

At night your soulmate’s heartbeat seemed to stay constant like it did during the day or sometimes it even quickened, rather than calm with sleep. It was like that night after night, to the point where you even considered that they lived in a part of the world where the time was different from your own. There were even nights when his quick heartbeat would wake you from your sleep, worrying that something may be wrong with him. Although it seemed that after you woke his heart rate would start to slow and even drift into a sleeping rate. It truly made you curious about their nocturnal habits, fearing they might be a criminal of some sort.

Thankfully, in reality, it was quite the opposite. Your lanky soulmate simply decided he wanted to begin studying medicine. Declaring to his adoptive guardian, rather abruptly one day, that “I’m going to have to take care of them, protect them, and all of you too! So, I’ve decided I’m going to become a doctor!” Mazelinka glanced at the scrawny, long-limbed boy, too ambitious for his own good, but she couldn’t disapprove of such a genuine decision. Instead, approving of his choice and even going as far as to guide him to the best mentors she knew of. If her naive son was going to try to be a doctor she was at least going to give him as best of a start as she could.

Through his travels he made sure to keep an eye on his bracelet while searching for his next teacher. Some were brutal mentors, demanding so much from his young mind. Which easily led to many late nights studying, practicing, anything to get more knowledge under his belt. No matter how rough it became, he didn’t mind it. It was all for you. He knew that when he met you he was going to be the one who took responsibility for your well being and he wasn’t going to take that job lightly. 

He didn’t quite realize that he wasn’t the only victim of his late nights. It never occurred to him until he felt your heart rate stir back to that of a person who was awake. Then he felt terrible, knowing his frantic heart rate woke you up. Here he was trying to study so you would be as healthy as possible and yet he was the reason you weren’t getting sleep. It was at that point of the night, or early morning, that he would give in to your pulse and tuck himself into bed. There was something soothing about watching the stars pass by as your heart slowly matched the rhythm of his own. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes, he could pretend you were next to him, laying so he could listen to the soothing sound of your heart. The drumming against his wrist was proof you were alive, proof you existed, and that alone was enough to keep him going.

As time passed, the routine barely changed. Reassuring as it was to know the other was still alive, you weren’t able to travel any closer towards your soulmate. Yet still you were preoccupied with your own studies of magic as well as life events that simply seemed out of your control. In other words, the universe just didn’t want you two to meet just yet. Until eventually, the lanky boy hunched over his studying desk received the opportunity of a lifetime. He’s still not sure how he ended up near the docks, or at least he’s not consciously aware how he ended up there. It wasn’t long until a repetitive shout caught his attention. They were looking for crew members and the ‘they’ didn’t look too reputable, so why was he walking towards them? He didn’t know.

All he did know was a boat would get him around faster than his own cursed feet. In that moment he decided he was done waiting patiently to finish his studies. He was done waiting for you to find him first. After he came out of his impulse-decision fog, he found himself standing on the deck of the pirate boat, medical bag by his side. Much different from his other impulse-decisions, this time after coming out of the fog he felt no regret. The sparkling sea spanned the horizon in front of him, his heart thumping just a bit faster at the sight. He stepped towards the railing and felt the sea breeze brush his shaggy hair back, the beat against his wrist making him smile.

He had his sights set on his future and he wasn’t about to turn back now, not when he had you to look forward to. His voice full of conviction, he quietly promised to your heartbeat while the crew in the background raised the anchor and dropped the sail, “Wherever you are, I’ll find you, my love.”


End file.
